The present invention generally relates to bodily fluid sampling and more specifically, but not exclusively, concerns bodily fluid sampling devices having a supply of sterile lancets carried by a tape.
The acquisition and testing of bodily fluids is useful for many purposes, and continues to grow in importance for use in medical diagnosis and treatment, and in other diverse applications. In the medical field, it is desirable for lay operators to perform tests routinely, quickly and reproducibly outside of a laboratory setting, with rapid results and a readout of the resulting test information. Testing can be performed on various bodily fluids, such as blood and/or interstitial fluid. Such fluids can be tested for a variety of characteristics of the fluid, or analytes contained in the fluid, in order to identify a medical condition, determine therapeutic responses, assess the progress of treatment, and the like.
The testing of bodily fluids begins with obtaining the fluid sample. One method of acquiring the fluid sample involves inserting a hollow needle or syringe into a vein or artery in order to withdraw a blood sample. However, such direct vascular blood sampling can have several limitations, including pain, infection, and hematoma and other bleeding complications. In addition, direct vascular blood sampling is not suitable for repeating on a routine basis, can be extremely difficult and is not advised for patients to perform on themselves.
The other common technique for collecting a blood or other bodily fluid sample is to form an incision in the skin to bring the fluid to the skin surface. According to this technique, a lancet, such as a needle, knife or other cutting instrument, is used to form the incision in the skin. The resulting blood or interstitial fluid specimen may then be collected in a small tube or other container, or placed directly in contact with a test strip or otherwise analyzed. Because lancets are necessarily sharp, lancing devices are typically constructed to protect the lancets when not in use to avoid injuries and contamination.
However, many existing lancing devices are generally designed to hold a single lancet and after lancing require manual replacement of the lancets before performing a subsequent lancing. Particularly where an individual needs to obtain multiple samples per day, it can be inefficient and inconvenient to carry a separate supply of lancets or to use a separate device for each lancing event. A self contained multi-use lancing device could avoid the problems of manually replacing a used lancet, but there are challenges in designing a multi-use lancing device that can safely and reliably handle the lancets yet is compact in design and simple for a lay operator to use and which is also economical to manufacture. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a multi-use lancing device that meets some or all of these challenges. In one form, the present invention addresses this need and provides a multi-use lancing device that is simple and safe for a lay operator to use and that is cost-effective to manufacture. In other forms the present invention provides other advancements in the art.